130 THE HORSE AND HIS EIDER. 



INTRINSIC VALUE OF A HORSE. 



Although it is a common axiom that " the value of a 

 thing is exactly what it will fetch," yet in the hunting- 

 field the price at which a horse has been sold is very 

 rarely a criterion of his real worth, the reason being that 

 his performances are made up of three items, of which 

 he himself forms only one, the other two being stable 

 management and good riding, for neither of which is the 

 quadruped entitled to claim the smallest amount of credit ; 

 and yet, on the principle that " handsome is that hand- 

 some does/' it is a usual error, especially among young 

 sportsmen, to estimate that a horse which goes brilliantly 

 must be a good one, and vice versa ; whereas an ordinary 

 description of animal, in splendid condition, and judici- 

 ously ridden, cannot fail to leave far behind him a 

 superior one injudiciously ridden, made up of flesh instead 

 of muscle, of impure instead of pure blood, and of bloated, 

 unpractised, instead of healthy, well-exercised lungs. For 

 these reasons it continually happens that a horse that has 

 been observed to go what is called " brilliantly " through- 

 out a run, is, at its conclusion, sold for a considerable 

 sura, in addition to another horse, on which the purchaser, 

 in a few weeks, leaves behind him the animal he had sold, 

 whose owner now to his cost discovers that 



